Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
As one could imagine, my wish of a quiet time from the HYBE/ADOR clash until the extraordinary shareholders’ meeting on May 31 was for naught. Instead, we’ve gotten more legal arguments made in the public, attempting to win us all over.
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First and foremost, I’ve recently noticed more and more people with a “please just settle it in court” attitude in the comments, which I honestly can’t disagree with. Well, good news, you seem to be in the majority, as Koreans are also reportedly tiring of this.
According to the Korea Newspaper Association, the issue has been covered in more than 1270 articles within the very few days at the end of April. However, the public no longer wants to follow this prolonged dispute without a solution.
Yeah, at this point a lot of the arguments they’re making is stuff that they can and will resolve in court anyway. However, Min Hee Jin’s press conference was such an effective PR tool, that it effectively necessitated more things going public*. In a way then, while she also provided memes and entertainment, she has also cursed me to these posts.
*Though as I’ve said before, things have predictably trended more towards neutral since.
Anyway, if you want to read everything, then you can always click through (I’ll try to use English sources as much as possible), but I’ll try to cut things down into even smaller portions until the consequential news comes out.
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On that note, back to the legal-related salvos exchanged between the two sides.
HYBE has requested an investigation by the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) of an ADOR exec on charges of violating the Capital Market Act, as they say the exec sold 950 shares of HYBE stock worth 200 million won a day before ADOR execs sent the internal memo to HYBE*.
*So basically, the ADOR exec is accused of doing what three HYBE employees were last year, and they have recently been forwarded to prosecution over it. They’d be familiar with what constitutes an alleged violation, I suppose.
They have also requested an investigation of Min Hee Jin and other ADOR execs for fraudulent transactions and market manipulation due to spreading false information that impacted stock prices. They cite KakaoTalk convos from March and April as evidence, where the execs acknowledge that HYBE’s price will drop if the ADOR dispute was public.
In response, ADOR says it was HYBE’s choice to conduct an audit and request a shareholders’ meeting simultaneously, making things public so that they could replace the ADOR board ASAP. They also explain that the HYBE stock was sold by the exec to pay a down payment on a home, providing evidence of a house lease on April 8.
Additionally, they say the KakaoTalk messages were discussing response strategies if the internal complaint went public, essentially what to do if HYBE went nuclear. They essentially argue it’s ironic for HYBE to be complaining about the stock prices when none of this would’ve happened if HYBE addressed things internally.
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But wait, there’s more!
Additionally, there’s a dispute over a meeting between ADOR executives and an outside analyst. HYBE is asking for the analyst to be investigated by the FSS as well, alleging that they also violated the Capital Markets Act by helping to manipulate public opinion and thus causing the stock to fall. They claim he provided opinions on a takeover plan for ADOR, advised Min Hee Jin on shareholder agreement changes, and arranged meetings with foreign investors to sell ADOR. They cite KakaoTalk convos between MHJ and an ADOR exec regarding meeting an investor, which they say contradicts MHJ’s claim at the press conference that she never met with any.
In response, ADOR claim it wasn’t a private meeting but a gathering organized by the investors for a ‘Prospects For K-Culture Investment’ event, and the ADOR exec simply had lunch with the analyst that served as a consultation of ADOR’s market value that didn’t continue beyond that. Furthermore, they explain that the analyst met with HYBE later that day, and that the Min Hee Jin’s shareholder contract was consulted with the permission of HYBE CEO Park Ji Won (KakaoTalk evidence again).
As a note, it doesn’t seem like ADOR address the alleged foreign investors meetings, but also the KakaoTalk convos from HYBE don’t technically show MHJ herself meeting the investor. Read into that technicality as you wish.
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And scene.
As impressive as Min Hee Jin’s PR hail mary against HYBE was, and as hilariously incompetent as HYBE’s plan against her was, at the end of the day the arguments in court are where the rubber is going to meet the road. Public sentiment can be fickle, and it’s in court where we’ll most likely find out what the substantive arguments actually are, and what’s real and what’s fluff.
Honestly, I should probably be hyping these things up to get people on the site or whatever, but for most every K-pop fan, you can probably just wait until the legal outcomes get revealed at this point. I’ll keep you posted if any hilarious shit comes out of it.
More BSH is face blind and a deranged MHJ calling people old bastards, less "erm, actually, you can see on line 148 of clause 13 that…".
— Asian Junkie (@asianjunkiecom) May 13, 2024
